Florida State football is entering a dangerous territory during the 2026 season. The program is starving for success, and their fan base is too. The Seminoles now have a combined 7-17 record over the past two seasons, which is certainly not good enough to compete for championships.
Head football coach Mike Norvell is not in the good graces of a lot of individuals after his 2-10 blunder in 2024, and the final straw was having people watch the Stanford road game after midnight just to see a loss.
Nonetheless, the administration decided to keep him here for another year, which could have been because they believe in Norvell's ability to turn this around (he did go from 5-7 in 2021 to 10-3 in 2022) or the fact that they don't have enough financial resources to relieve him of his duties.
This isn't an opportunity for me to speak of another individual's job security and hold the pitchforks, but that doesn't mean other outlets are talking about Florida State football and the situation at hand.
On3 Analyst J.D. PicKell shares his criticism with Florida State football
Florida State football had its enemies with ESPN's Paul Finebaum and Greg McElroy. This was understandable because they work for a company that favors the SEC, and we all know that they and the Big Ten get over-the-top treatment.
However, On3 analyst J.D. PicKell has always been a big supporter of the Florida State football program. He has mentioned how much he likes Mike Norvell and how successful they were in 2022 and 2023.
PicKell even had a ton of hype in the offseason before the 2024 season. Unfortunately, that campaign ended in a 2-10 record and left a sour taste in his belief in the program. PicKell recently shared his thoughts on how Florida State football got to this point of being a bad product over the past two years, and it should not surprise anyone.
PicKell mentioned in an On3 YouTube video (click here for the full video) that the Seminoles' overreliance on the transfer portal hurt them. The Seminoles should have focused on the high school recruiting trail and only used the portal to fill in the gaps of the roster (especially at quarterback).
However, after a while, Florida State became dependent on the portal, and if the transfer prospects were not good, they didn't have any other answers of depth on their roster to replace them. This is something that fans have been saying for years, but it was never addressed before due to the fact that the 2022 and 2023 campaigns were successful using the portal.
With that said, the 2025 and 2026 recruiting classes are something that Florida State could definitely use for depth on the roster, where it has plenty of talented players. However, the Seminoles have to keep stacking that talent to be successful in the future.